Students try their hand at archaeology at South Jersey Museum of American History

Boston Barger, 8, and Daniel Adair, 10, craft pre-Columbian pots together at the South Jersey Museum of American History. Staff photo by Jessica Bautista/Gloucester County Times

GLASSBORO — “I wish we could go on a real archaeology dig. That’d be awesome!” said eight-year-old Boston Barger as he fumbled with clay.

“You will some day,” said Jeffrey Norcross, curator of the South Jersey Museum of American History.

Boston and 10-year-old Daniel Adair were among some of the youngsters who are being taught the basics of archaeology this month by Norcross, a working archaeologist by trade.

The class, a three-day long course for children ages 7 to 14, is being held each week in August at the museum.

Whether Boston and Daniel actually will choose to be archaeologists themselves is hard to say, but they will at least know what it is, and most importantly, what it isn’t.

“It’s not like Hollywood,” Norcross said. “It’s not a lot of excavating, but it is a lot of research. We provide information to historians and provide artifacts for museums.”

Norcross said he and a team of archaeologists will be excavating in an early 19th century farmstead in New York in the near future, but that weeks and weeks of the project will be dedicated to logging information and taking measurements.

A common misconception, Norcross adds, is that people believe the profession is one big “Indiana Jones” adventure.

Even though it isn’t, the boys were still pretty exhilarated.

They got their hands dirty and had the chance to use as many archaeology tools as possible in their short time at the museum.

On Friday, Boston and Daniel were patiently molding air-dry clay into pre-Columbian pots, learning, in essence, how they would’ve been made thousands of years ago.

“I think archaeology is an adventure that takes you back in time,” Boston said enthusiastically. “You know what I’ve always wanted? To time travel.”

The class will be offered on Thursdays through Sundays until the end of August.